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Cohn: Prorogation may look like prologue come the new year

Canadians hate prorogation today just as they did when Harper invoked it in 2008. But three years later voters rewarded Harper with a majority government.

Dalton McGuinty's prorogation of the legislature was not his finest hour, but nor was it the worst abuse in the annals of Western democracy. When a lame duck premier walks and talks like a lame duck, he&rsquo;s a lame duck &mdash; not a dictator in jackboots. (RICK MADONIK / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Why did he do it? How did Dalton McGuinty get away with his October surprise, no questions asked?

Two weeks after the premier pressed the prorogation button, winding down the legislature without warning, he is learning the same painful lesson that Stephen Harper learned in 2008: Canadians care about constitutional arcana and democratic tradition.

But here’s a lesson Canadians are still learning all these years later: despite their protests, politicians will do whatever it takes (within the law) to retain power — even when, in McGuinty’s case, they are giving it up.

For the leader of a minority government, defeat is simply not an option, unless it’s on his own terms. Which is precisely why the premier asked the lieutenant governor to prorogue Ontario’s legislature.

McGuinty wanted to resign in his own time, allowing a sufficient interval to arrange an orderly succession of his Liberal party ahead of fresh elections, likely in the new year.

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It wasn’t just hubris or pride, but practicality and political calculus: the Liberals were facing possible contempt hearings in the aftermath of cancelling two gas-fired power plants.

Of course, a contempt motion is not a confidence motion. The Liberals might still have dodged that bullet by sacrificing Energy Minister Chris Bentley, the immediate target of the opposition crusade. (Bentley’s belated decision this week to sit out the Liberal leadership race and step down in the next election will take the air out of the opposition onslaught.)

The bigger problem was the premier himself. He still owned the Mississauga gas plant controversy after vowing to cancel it during the last election.

With or without Bentley in the line of fire, McGuinty was increasingly in the opposition’s sights. Watching his legitimacy go up in smoke, McGuinty no longer had the fire in his belly.

On Oct. 15 the premier sought an audience with Lt.-Gov. David Onley. Publicly, he had two reasons for prorogation. He wanted time to renegotiate a foundering wage freeze with labour unions. And with his resignation in hand, the Liberals needed time to choose a new leader.

What McGuinty didn’t discuss was the endgame: his fears that an emboldened opposition might soon unleash a non-confidence motion upon his minority government, plunging the province into an election he no longer has the stomach to fight.

Interviewed last week on TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin, McGuinty uncharacteristically lowered his guard and disclosed the contents of that confidential conversation in the viceregal suite. There were no questions from Onley. No delays in giving an answer. And no commitment sought (or offered) on time limits — it was left solely to the premier or his successor to decide when the legislature would resume sitting.

To which Ontarians might well respond: Is this how it’s supposed to work?

I’m no constitutional authority so I’ll leave it to the experts to judge Onley’s first real test, just as former governor general Michaëlle Jean was second-guessed in 2008. (Note that she kept Harper cooling his heels at Rideau Hall while consulting her advisers.)

Still, as a former journalist, Onley could have asked McGuinty at least a couple of questions. If the labour negotiations falter, will you then recall the legislature? And, to avoid open-ended prorogation, how long must the province wait for a Liberal leadership race?

In the aftermath, the public got a few answers: Labour negotiations unravelled. And the Liberals quickly announced a late-January date for their leadership convention, assuaging suspicions that prorogation equalled procrastination.

This wasn’t McGuinty’s finest hour, but it wasn’t the worst abuse in the annals of Western democracy. When a lame duck premier walks and talks and quacks like a lame duck, he’s a lame duck — not a dictator walking in jackboots.

By next year we will look back on prorogation as prologue: The beginning of the end of the McGuinty government, the stillborn rebirth of the Liberal party, and the dawn of a Tory or NDP minority government or Liberal-NDP coalition.

Polls show people hate prorogation now just as they did when Harper invoked it in 2008. But when people went to the polls to cast their ballots in 2011, voters rewarded Harper with a majority government.

If you’re still despairing over prorogation, have patience. McGuinty hasn’t declared himself premier-for-life, so voters will soon be able to punish the Liberals just as they vowed to defeat the federal Tories — and then didn’t.

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